Hi,

I just crossed Pakistan from India to Iran. I would also recommend you to stop in Dalbandin. I stayed at Hotel Dalwood which was very good. Single Room for 300Rs (even with TV).

In Quetta I did not stay at the "Bloom Star Hotel". They got greedy and try to charge you at least 1500Rs for a room + 300 Rs for parking :ban:
I stayed at the "New Grand" just turn left after the tourist information office a few hundred metres away from the Bloomstar. I paid 500 Rs for a decent double room and they have secure parking too.

You can send me a PN if you have any questions about Pakistan.

I enjoyed my time there very much!

Cheers,
Frank

Visa info - help please!
 

Hi all,
(Ed, hi its Char from Zen Overland -hope you are well). Gabe (baron bolton)and I are off on two bikes leaving the UK in mid September, and seeing how far east we get, in the general direction of India.

Can anyone confirm the pakistan visa process?

If I am correct we take all relevant paperwork to the High commission in London, queue up, and hope to be seen. Does anyone have any recent experience of this, and can give the lowdown? And also, where does one gets the "invitation letter from sponsor"?

We think we have the iranian visa under control. Awaiting the authorisation code from iranianvisa.com and will then take a trip down to London to queue with paperwork and hopefully be given a visa.

As for routes - I was under the impression that we would be given police escorts all the way to Lahore (from Bam in Iran), and that a route would not be something we could choose?

Check out my earlier thread
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...pakistan-57916

Cheers
Char

Wow, Hi Char. Thanks for asking the visa question (I'm still a tad confused with the Pak visa)
Maybe our times and paths will cross and we could meet somewhere that has beer bier. Will you be riding or flying back home?
I'm also looking forward to the HU meeting in September, this time it looks like there'll be four C90's but only 3 riders (let the mystery commence haha).

Hey Omar. Its sad to hear the situation has gotten worse. :(Pakistan was amazing, probably the most adventurous bit of our trip. Looking back at our photos is very strange now being back home. I remember talking to a man in Quetta who mentioned the drone attacks too. I hope the rains this year are kinder.

Thats the route we took (opposite direction).

Our biggest mistake was when there was a delay at a checkpoint about 100km before we got to Quetta and the sun set on us. We should have stopped at that point instead of riding on into the dark.doh

Its worth figuring out locations of hotels along the way so you know where you can stay if plans change. We also found it best to know names of *different* hotels in each area so you could give those if someone casually asked where you were staying...

There will be others who will be more blasé about it and think they know better/can go faster than the police escorts. At the end of the day they are doing their job while you are on your jolly tour and I think it's important to try not to be a pain in their a$$. If they tell you not to go somewhere then there is probably a reason for it. By and large, the guys assigned to look after us were professional and courteous.

Anyway, stay safe out there, wherever you are.

N

Hey,

We have just come through Iran it was great and we where made to feel very welcome most of the time. We found the north a little more unfriendly than the south and had trouble with people pre tending to be officials at the border but we have come across that fairly often.

Have any of you guys tried to get the pakistan Visa on the border, we have been told its now impossible and it leaves us in a difficult situation as we want to head to india. We are now in Dubai trying to figure out what to do.

Any ideas welcome

James

Hi James,
Pakistani VOA is only available at the Sost border. This is a Pak/China border on the KKH. You might like to drive accross Central Asia and China too and then enter Pakistan. The only problem is that China is expensive for bikers.

Cheers
Omar

You might want to take a look at the waypoints at the website below - might not be totally up to date but gives a general impression waht to expact on the Taftan - Quetta route:

www.quetta-overland.com

Cheers!

Arno

Just doing a quick bump to see if anyone has any recent info?

The relations between to UK and Iran are falling through the floor and it's not looking good. I'm in Kaula Lumpur at the moment on my trusty C90 and will be heading north to start the trip next week :)

any info is greatly appriciated

Ed

Bugger, I'll keep my eyes peeled for you chief but it's not looking good. Maybe go through Saudi Arabia?

Relations with Iran have been going up and down with many countries. In the 5 times i've crossed Iran, it's been the same all the time. And each time it's been rather surprising the Iranian visa was handed out anyway. Try it anyway, you'll never know, apart from the question if you want to be there anyway.

Alternative is to drive up the Karakoram highway if the weather season is right towards Tajikistan through China. The political season there was usually wrong by default in the past.

Shipment from Mumbai to Muscat / Sharjah (UAE) is also a possibility. Many Dhows cross this stretch all the time.

Cheers!
Arno

Thanks guys, I will be getting to the KKH at around feb-March so I'm guessing it'll be closed?

And is Saudi a possibility? I have heard getting a visa and bike in is pretty much impossible (I have a carnet by the way)

Any help is awesome :)

Ed

The KKH might still have some snow in spring time. Its a trade route with China so trucks will be moving all year round, unless they can't clear the route.

The saudi transit visa is indeed hard to get by when coming from Jordan / Syria. Many tried and failed.

However, when you're in the UAE, getting the Transit visa to Jordan is a 1 day process in Abu Dhabi. The Saudi embassy uses an agent close-by which helps you through the process.

ou might have to get the Jordanian visa first, but for most nationalities its handed out on the Jordanian border.

Don't let the 5 day transit visa expire without report yourself to a nearby police station in case of a breakdown or anything else. The trouble is huge at the border with an expired transit visa, even for experienced people crossing the border often. You need quite a bit of Wusta to get yourself out of such a mess.

From what I heard the route is extremely dull with bad corroded asphalt on parts of the route.

Cheers!
Arno

hmm, this looks like a difficult choice. The jordan visa doesn't seem too hard to get from a foreign embassy (the fact they hand them out at the border should help I'm guesssing)

I can't find any official info online about the process for getting the transit visa in Abu Dhabi, just hear-say. It's not that I don't believe you, I just like to have an idea of how to do things so I don't get land locked :)

Which does lead me to my next problem: according to google it's 1300 miles across Saudi and I'm on a C90 with a max speed of 45mph and that's on flat tarmac. that's 260 miles (about 10 hours ride average) for 5 days in a row with no breakdowns or punctures or slow sections. I can take the endurance but if fate throws some punctures then I'm riding in the dark on bad tarmac....not a good idea.

hmmm this is a tricky one:(

There's nothing online about the visa process to my knowledge. I'd call the Saudi Embassy in Abu Dhabi - tell them you're on a UAE tourist visa and want to get to Jordan on your SC90.

Most crossing the border with Saudi are locals (Saudi's, Syrians, Jordans, Omani and Emirati) or expats on a Saudi visa. Occasionally foreign tourist also cross the border coming from Iran, Jemen or Oman with a transit visa from the Saudi embassy in Abu Dhabi.

Just recently a dutch guy crossed Saudi from a sea port coming from Africa and drove through Jordan / Syria towards Turkey.

Here's the Saudi transit story from Jiddah to the borderpost near Aquaba. He followed the coastal route on a 3 day transit visa. He lost a bit of transit time in the harbour - which is always a lengthy ordeal. He crossed Saudi in about 2 days with a MAN 4x4 truck.

Crossing Saudi from Jiddah to Aquaba

Use Google Translate to decipher Dutch

Cheers
Arno